Wilderness Survival Tips

While the purpose of Survival Homestead is to prepare you for the second scenario, here’s a brief rundown of wilderness survival tips for those weekend warriors and Daniel Boone wannabes:

1. Let people know your destination and when to expect you to return
2. Take a map and compass, both of which you know how to use
3. Dress appropriately, using layers to avoid overheating
4. Take water and water purification tablets or filter
5. Take food, even high calorie energy or protein bars
6. Travel at the speed of the slowest member of the group
7. Stay together
8. Stay on the trails or roads
9. If you get lost stay in one place.

Disaster-inspired survival situations require altogether different types of equipment and skills. These skills are those that real warriors and the real Daniel Boone may have had. Fortunately there are outdoor survival schools, survival and emergency preparedness groups and a plethora of books and survival magazines that can help you attain those skills.

Even if you can’t attend a wilderness survival school, there are skills that you can and should learn. Survival in the wilderness will require three necessities: water, food and shelter. In order of survivability, they are shelter, water and food.

Remember: Whether in the Artic or the Mohave Desert, shelter is more important than food.

A human can usually survive about 30 days without food, provided there is water to drink. Depending on your level of activity and setting you can survive about 3-5 days without water. However, death can occur in a matter of hours without adequate shelter, and within minutes from injury.

Learn to make a fire without matches. Develop your plant identification skills. There are even books that will teach you how to set snares or traps and build fishing weirs or nets. Take a basket-weaving class. Learn how to tan animal skins. Imagine what wilderness skills you would need if you suddenly found yourself sent back 200 years. Those are the same wilderness survival tips you will need to know if you want to survive in the wilderness today.

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